Kamatari Fujiwara

Fujiwara was born in Tokyo, on January 15, 1905, in Tokyo, Japan. Fujiwara's parents ran a printing business. The business did not go well, so at the age of 10, Fujiwara started working at a local confectionery store. By the age of 14 he had started selling timber for building and manufacturing in Shizuoka prefecture. A year later he returned to Tokyo to study as a pharmacist.

The Asakusa Opera Movement was started in 1916, and was part of the mass culture of the time.[2] By the 1920s it had become very popular. Fujiwara, inspired by this, enrolled at the Takinogawa actor/martial arts school. After graduation, he approached actor Kenzo Kuroki at Asakusa's Kinryūkan to see if he would personally teach him acting. His first work was on stage as a chorist. Realising that he was short, not particularly attractive, and unlikely to have a main part on stage, he decided to diversify his skills for performance and started studying violin at Toyo music school.

Following the Great Kantō earthquake, the Asakusa Opera movement started losing popularity. As a result, Fujiwara worked at the movie theatre as a violinist, where his lesser height and unattractiveness were not an issue.

Perhaps, in spite of his looks, Fujiwara married an unknown village woman. They had a son; however, after his birth she died.

In July 1930, an old friend, actor and comedian Kenichi Enomoto, asked him to participate in forming the New Casino Folies in the Asakusa district.[3][4] The Casino Folies with its risqué showgirl entertainment, was often associated with the term ero guro nansensu or "Erotic Grotesque Nonsense" era.[5][6] As part of the troupe, he was able to use physical comedy, utilising Karate breakfall techniques and blows he had learnt. In 1933 he resigned from Casino Follies and became a movie actor.

His first movie was Ongaku Kigeki - Horoyui Jinsei (English: "Musical Comedy - Intoxicated Life"), which was released in 1933. It was a comedy about the joys of beer drinking. This was the very first production of what was soon to become Toho Co., Ltd., the biggest and wealthiest studio during the so-called "Golden Age" of Japanese cinema of the 1950s and early 1960s.[7] In fact, most of his movies, for 40 years, were made with Toho.

In 1936 he married popular fellow actor Sadako Sawamura, whom he had met whilst working together on set. Though they acted in many Toho Studio films, they were only in two together; Toyuki a Chinese/Japanese co production made in 1940 and Uma, made in 1941. They did not produce children and divorced in 1946. Fujiwara did not remarry again.

Fujiwara's perhaps most famous role abroad was as the character of Manzo, in the famous Akira Kurosawa movie, Seven Samurai. The character of Manzo was a paranoid peasant, who protected his daughter from the attentions of the Samurai by dressing her as a little boy. The character's story is part of the key plot. Manzo, like many of the characters that Fujiwara portrayed, is low class, and disheveled. Manzo is typical of the villagers, and his character often represents their interests. His smiling face is significant at the end of the film as it indicates that the villagers themselves are the real winners in the plot.[9]

Kurosawa and Fujiwara disputed over how Manzo should be portrayed. Kurosawa wanted him played seriously while Fujiwara wanted to make his paranoia comical. Fujiwara won and when he saw the film again, Kurosawa found that Fujiwara made the right decision.

One of his largest roles was in the Kurosawa epic, Hidden Fortress. It was in this role that he played a comic grotesque, opposite Mifune. His annoying peasant character Matashichi gave inspiration to George Lucas for R2D2. The taller fellow lead character, Tahei, played by Minoru Chiaki served as the inspiration for C-3PO. Additionally, the characters and general plotline involving a princess fleeing an evil empire formed the basis for Lucas's movie, Star Wars.

Despite the influence, Fujiwara received no money from Lucas, and Lucas never personally thanked Fujiwara. Fujiwara may or may not have seen the Star Wars films, but he did not comment on what he thought of R2D2 or any other of the characters,[10] though the subject of Star Wars was brought up in a televised discussion between himself, Akira Kurosawa, and his costars Misa Uehara and Minoru Chiaki.[11] George Lucas acknowledged heavy influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars,[12] particularly the technique of telling the story from the perspective of the film's lowliest characters, C-3PO and R2-D2.[13][14]